Food photography with Shirley O. Corriher.

This is a half a year old photo-shoot, but I would like to share the outcome here, the post is following this ONE. I was not able to release the details of the shot due to a restriction from a client, and now they seems to be OK with it

Shirley Corriher the one of our most enjoyable customers. This time she showed us how to cook. The previous 4 days photoshot was only about the food, and now we did few portraits in the kitchen as well.

The lighting setup:

As usual, only strobes were used, I still ignoring the ambient light:-) Lighting diagram above should be pretty self-explainable:

BD from the top (1), large strip box from the left (2) to soften shadows a little.
Hair light (3) through 20° snoot on the right behind, as I like it always to be the opposite side from the fill light (which is strip box, I believe . Large softbox (4) was used to highlight  the kitchen where needed.

Shirley is amazingly easy person to work with: despite my curvy English we had very effective team work: she know exactly when to look at the camera, when to change a pose and when to wait for me while i adjust my stuff.

Now the biscuit.
Client wanted the image to be  bright and soft, with warm colors. To make it bright, but still full in details (where it needed) I use  several spot lights to highlight each object or group of objects individually. One of the photos:

Lighting setup for a food photography:

Lights by numbers:

1. This is not a light. This is the place where light is coming: Canon 1Ds Mark III.
2. 10° spot to highlight the flowers.
3. 10° snoot for a biscuit (top of it)
4. Beauty dish, the largest lights source in the whole setup.
5. 20° spot to highlight glasses with juice.
6. Strip box for the background.
7. 10° spot for a biscuit, to enhance the texture of the bread.

Sorry, no light ratio information: I still use my eyes to get what I want

Equipment and shooting spec:

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Camera gear:

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
• Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
• Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
• Canon Right Angle Finder
• Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L lens

Lighting and light modifiers and accessories:

• Paul C. Buff Lighting: 2×1600WS, 2×800WS, 2×400WS
• 10° and  20° honeycomb grids mounted on standard Paul C. Buff reflector
• 1x 6”x36” strip box, unknown brand:-)
• LG4X 4 channel remote control for flash units
• CyberSync™ CST  Trigger Transmitter and CyberSync™ AC Powered Trigger Receiver
• Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table

All shots were done with: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F8-F10 depending of the DOF required, ISO 100, Custom WB 5900K

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Thanks for reading, let me know if you have something to say:-)

P.S Yesterday I finished DIY battery pack, similar to Vagabond II form Paul C. Buff, and it works amazingly good! Working on the article and DIY video, so stay tuned!

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